126 THE DOVER ROAD 



cheese ; and a sailor has ouarded his tankard of beer 

 with a pistol. 



But see how different are things across the Channel. 

 Outside the Sabot Royal a party of French grenadiers, 

 lean and hungry-looking after their poor fare of 

 soiipe vuiigre, are Avatching one of their number cook 

 the sprats he has spitted on his sword. A monk with a 

 grin of satisfaction feels the edge of an axe which he has 

 taken from a cart full of racks and other engines of 

 torture destined towards the furnishing of a monastery 

 at Blackfriars in London, of which a plan is seen lying 

 upon this heap of ironmongery ; and a file of soldiers 

 may be seen in the distance, reluctantly embarking for 

 England, and spurred forward by the point of the 

 sergeant's halberd. Garrick wrote the patriotic verses 

 that went with this picture, and you may see from 

 them how constantly Englishmen have thought the 

 French to be a nation of lean and hungry starvelings. 

 That is, of course, as absurd as the unfailing practice of 

 French caricaturists to whom the t3q)ical Englishman 

 is a creature who has red hair and protruding teeth, 

 and says " Goddam " — 



With lanthoni jaws and croaking gut. 

 See how the hah-starv'd Frenchmen strut, 



And call us English dogs ; 

 But soon we'll teach these bragging foes, 

 That beef and beer give heavier blows 



Than soup and roasted frogs. 



The priests, inflam'd with righteous hopes, 

 Prepare their axes, wheels, and ropes, 



To bend the stiff-neck'd sinner : 

 But, should they sink in coming over, 

 Old Nick may fish 'twixt France and Dover, 



And catch a glorious dinner. 



FcAV people, as Dickens says, can tell where Rochester 

 ends and Chatham begins, but even now j^ou become 

 conscious of a gradual alteration in the character of the 

 street as you leave Rochester High Street and come 

 imi^erceptibly into Chatham ; and even though the 

 place has grown so large, and holds so very varied 

 a population that the military and naval sections no 



